For Green
by Kinberuri
Summary: (shounen-ai/Gojyo+Hakkai) Random Gojyo stream of thought...


AN: Um. Shitty title, I'll try to come up with something better later. n_n; Any suggestions?  
  
This is what I refer to as a fic doodle... Pretty meaningless, just random spouted thoughts in first person. Gojyo's thoughts on Hakkai at some unspecified time during the series. No *real* spoilers, just references to how the Saiyuki boys ended up together.  
  
Warnings: Shounen ai-ish stuff. Rambling. n_n; I'm not sure parts of this make any sense or if I managed to get across what I was trying to convey. Oh well.  
  
---  
  
Everyone around here seems to hate the rain. The air becomes heavy in our little party, raindrops bringing thoughtfulness, quiet, remorse. He can never seem to sleep when it rains -- just sits and watches it with a hauntedness in his eyes that he'd never let show if he knew someone were watching.  
  
You know, essentially life is really easy. Simple: you live day to day. It's easy to slide by, if you're living for yourself and no one else. It's not until someone else is involved that life itself shows its true complications. Because that's the way I used to live -- nothing mattered. I got by on the money I won gambling. I had cigarettes, women and booze. Simplicity.  
  
The problem is, that eventually the world will throw something in to shatter simplicity and then everything that you thought life was made up of suddenly isn't worth shit. Suddenly there's something that actually means something in your life.  
  
Have you ever met someone whose smile hurt to watch?  
  
And then you find yourself just wanting to make those smiles go away -- they're always fucking there but you can see through them. You know somehow that they're the thin mask over a dying heart. So you want to make them go away and replace them with something real. To shatter that mask and instead allow them to smile that wonderful, genuine smile and hear them laugh a real true laugh.  
  
What's that supposed to mean, exactly?  
  
That's where it starts. Just this vague need to make it real. To fix whatever it is under there that's hurting so much that it has to be beaten down with those smiles. Then you start to realize -- after hating those smiles -- that it's who they are. That those smiles, whether they're masking pain or not, are a part of who they are. Just the same as the things you do -- the drinking, the women -- are part of who you are, masking the pain.  
  
Then it goes deeper.  
  
You start to realize hey -- we've got something in common. Even if it's pain. It creates this connection. And the smiles that you once hated to see start to make you smile too. They're beautiful in their own way, because it's *them*. And real smiles and laughs show up too and it's better than drinking or women -- because you're laughing with them. And you're making him laugh. And you realize you'd do anything for those real smiles.  
  
Then it gets complicated.  
  
He has to go and say something stupid. Something wonderful because then you know he sees through you, too. He sees who you are, not some damn color or label or even some persona set up to keep people out. And once he does that, you can never let him get away.  
  
That's how I got into all of this. For him. Because I couldn't just let him go, with some idiot priest and his trained monkey chasing him. And I don't think it was until after I thought he was dead that I realized exactly what was going on inside my head. So I guess the question is, why didn't I do anything about it after he showed up that day?  
  
I take what I want. I see something I want, I go after it. I can have just about any woman I chase -- and if I can't get her with the chase, it's easy enough to booze them up. But it's increasingly empty. Satisfying in its own right, but always feels like something's lacking. They're forgotten by the next day. Another conquest come and gone.  
  
But he remains. Years pass and in moments that I let myself become weak, he's my conquest if only in my mind. He's got an ungodly tolerance to alcohol -- maybe slip just a little something into his wine, just enough to loosen him up a bit. And then make his body mine. Start with his lips -- I've always thought them strangely full and beautiful for a man and wondered so many times of their taste, their feel. His eyes would have a shy uncertainty to them and they'd glance away as I stared into the depth of their green hues. His hair soft and yielding between my fingers. I could worship his body with my lips, kiss the scar that binds us together in yet another way. He'd murmur my name into my lips, wanting more of me.  
  
Back to reality.  
  
So why don't I take what I want? Why don't I do something about this man who's image has been eating away at the back of my mind for years?  
  
Because I haven't done it yet.  
  
I haven't made it better. I haven't changed his world the way he's changed mine. When he came into my life, his world had been shattered and now he lives like a dead man. Until I can give him something, make his world better somehow, I've got no right to want him. And unlike anything else, I don't want him until I can do that. Someday I'll figure it out, how to make the world -- both our worlds work right. Then all his smiles will be mine.  
  
He stirs at the entrance of the tent we're sharing where he sits, staring at the rain. I quickly shut my eyes, pretend to be asleep as he returns to his sleeping sack.  
  
A whisper. "I know you're awake, Gojyo." A tiny laugh. I, of course, don't respond. I'm asleep, dammit. The tent falls silent as he settles in to sleep.  
  
The rain makes me thoughtful, too. Because it was a night so much like this that bloodied and battered, like a half-dead animal, this amazing creature was dropped into my path and changed my life.  
  
-owari- 


End file.
